Starting with last Wednesday, our recent convert Dalton offered to
have us come to his house on Saturday night for a delicious treat so
I'll talk about that a bit later. Dalton is doing awesome, he is
getting ready to go to the temple in September, it will be a year by
then for him. The temple is awesome and he is super strong in the
gospel.
Thursday we went to see a part member family Roberto who is the member
and Paula is the investigator. Paula has schizophrenia so it makes it
interesting and next time we go over there, Roberto wants us to give
her a blessing to get rid of the voices in her head. The power of the
priesthood can do anything to those who have faith. We then ate and
did our planning. I've been living off of top ramen and pop tarts for
the past week and still am. I don't know how healthy it actually is
but you got to do what you got to do! We had some pretty sweet plans
for this past week and a lot of them have failed us but we have found
some cool people. I love looking up referrals, they either super
prepared or they are just flakes, so yeah. They are fun to look up. We
met with our elders quorum president to see how we can help him, and
he needs help with home teaching. It seems like home teaching is the
hardest thing for people to do. He gave us a ride to -co op city which
was fun. There are 5 sectors to co op city, and we were in the very
bottom one. We looked up a lot of people and did a lot of walking.
It's good exercise.
Friday we had to get up at 5:30 so we could make it to the Fordham
train station by 7:05 to catch the metro north train to Scarsdale for
the new missionary meeting. That meeting was fun. President talked
about how it's cool to be married to a returned missionary. Also about
missionary work. He talked about when he was at the mission conference
in Ohio at the Kirkland temple. Even though our church doesn't own
that building its still dedicated as a house of the lord. We don't
have un-dedicating prayers, it's dedicated until it's destroyed. He
talked about how when we stop by people and they aren't interested for
us to ask if we can stop by in a year because our message won't
change! It's the same message forever. It's unchanging. Also when we
go to the temple, are we going there to converse with God or just to
sit there? He used to analogy if He went into someone's house and
watched a movie and didn't say anything and then left. That's how it
is with the temple, we need to go there to converse with God and talk
to him, there is a reason we are there. President also stressed the
importance of planning, he said this "So much of how much success we
will see, takes place last night." It was super powerful. We looked up
so many people and no one was there. It was frustrating, we didn't
know exactly what to do so we prayed and felt inspired to go see
someone. We walked to this street and I told elder Clark that we have
someone to look up on that street and we were standing there. This guy
pulled over and said "Need help finding where you need to go? You look
lost." We talked to him for a while, he used to meet with Jehovah
Witnesses and he is interested in our church a bit. He wouldn't give
us his info but he said he would call us.
Saturday we saw a lot of miracles, everyone was talking with us and we
taught so many people about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus
Christ. We talked about the Book of Mormon to people and gave people
pamphlets and had such an epic day! We spent our day looking up people
but we saw miracles. Dalton fed us Goat Curry with dirty rice and a
salad and a drink which was super delicious! We ended up getting home
at 10:30, we were in bed so quickly.
Sunday we forgot it was daylight savings so we woke up at 7:25 but
church was so epic. I loved church, there was like no one there
though, not many males there but it was a fun day. Elder Clark and I
are giving a talk next Sunday. I chose a topic of missionary work,
it's gonna be so epic! We were in co op city again and met with a less
active in the Spanish ward, he speaks perfect English. It was a good
day to be out. It gets dark around 8 o'clock now, which is super nice
but that means in the morning it's very dark when we get up. I love
being in New York City!
Monday was nice, district meeting was awesome. Our mission president
is encouraging us to set personal and companionship goals because
that's how we stretch and grow. It takes setting goals and reaching
goals and measuring our progress. Our district did pretty kick butt
this past week. After district meeting I split with Elder Li and we
went to King Wok Chinese, it's super good. President called us at our
apartment just to see how our apartment was and if they should keep it
or if they should get rid of it. I like our apartment and he may move
another companionship into it! It's super awesome. All of our
appointments canceled but we did look up a referral and her daughter
watched the hallelujah video with us at her door and we explained the
Book of Mormon and she seemed interested. We still need to go see her
mom and show the video and give her a Book of Mormon. It was super
awesome, on that same floor, the same exact floor on the other side of
the building we found a guy named Edwin who told us that he has had a
feeling like he shouldn't go out for the past 3 weeks because
something was coming, and he believes that what we shared is what he
needs. He is a dope guy. It was super fun. We did so much look ups and
tracting and talking to people. I love when people come to the door
and yell who, and then you hear them on the other side of the door. We
tell them missionaries and they just walk away. Elder Li and I had a
great time and I learned a lot in how I can be a better missionary and
what I can do to see miracles. It was just epic. I cooked him some
spicy lemon chicken with ramen. It was delicious if I do say so
myself.
Tuesday was fun. Elder Clark and I were back together again. We did so
many look ups again but also got to have a dinner with the Salinas
family, they are so awesome! We had meat loaf, mashed potatoes and
Quinoa (It's a rice substitute). We had a pretty awesome day. We felt
like we should stop by Donna, we did and she wasn't there but we did
leave one of the new initiative cards and she texted us about an hour
later. Her son got s respiratory infection and they have been sick.
Satan is really working on them, we just hope and pray that they can
continue to find joy in the gospel. We love them so much.
That's our week, it has been pretty crazy but I know that everything
I'm doing here in New York will bless someone's life and I hope that
Im blessing your lives in something I say. I know Jesus is the Christ
and that through him I can be forgiven of my sins and I can find joy
and happiness. Jesus Christ died but was resurrected and we can all
make it back to our Heavenly Father and be relieved of any guilt or
shame we feel. Give it all to Christ, he is willing to take it so we
can live happily. I love this gospel, I love all of you.
Love,
Elder Casper
1. Elder Clark and I.
2. All the trainers and their trainees.
3. Welcome to Co-op City
4. Bronx Zoo (We missed our stop and ended up next to the Bronx zoo)
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